Tips for Negotiating Mobile-Game Development Agreements
March 28, 2007
The mobile-game industry can be lucrative. Mobile games ' which can be downloaded to cell phones and other mobile devices ' can be cheaper and easier to develop than games created for platforms like PCs or game consoles, where users expect higher production values. What also makes mobile games attractive to developers and entrepreneurs is the potential market of consumers who already carry and use cell phones ' estimated at 207.9 million nationwide and 2 billion worldwide. Mobile games present huge brand opportunities as well: Celebrities such as hotel heiress Paris Hilton, rapper 50 Cent, skateboarder Tony Hawk and poker champion Phil Hellmuth have each licensed their names and images to mobile games. Tom Cruise, notoriously shy of associating his name with videogames, lent his name exclusively to a Mission Impossible III mobile-phone game.
IP Branding: Adding Value to a Business
March 27, 2007
In a nutshell, the value of a firm or business is equal to not only the inherent value of its IP but also the value added from the successful branding of a company's intangible assets. This article presents four key steps, with a focus on patents and trademarks, toward adding an IP branding strategy to an existing business model.
'The Continuum of Value'
March 27, 2007
Despite no seeming fundamental economic differences, there have been occasions where divorce courts in different states have reached different conclusions of value for the same type of business. These states reach such different conclusions as to what constitutes marital property because they have different views as to the meaning of the term 'value.' This article represents a summary of some of our findings concerning the application of the premises and standards of value in divorce matters.
Units an Owner Can Recover for Self
March 27, 2007
The First Department's recent decision in <i>Pultz v. Economakis</i>, N.Y.L.J., Feb. 22, 2007, at 18, col. 1, has garnered a remarkable amount of press coverage for what is a fundamentally unremarkable case. The decision primarily stands for the humble proposition that a court must interpret a statute in accordance with its clear and unambiguous language. Nevertheless, the First Department's steadfast defense of an owner's right to recover one of more apartments for his or her own personal use merits further analysis.
In the Marketplace
March 27, 2007
Highlights of the latest equipment leasing news from around the country.
Illegal Use of Equipment
March 27, 2007
A Florida intermediate-level appellate court has held that a lessee is not relieved of its payment obligations when it discovers that it cannot lawfully utilize the leased equipment in the manner it intended. <i>De Lage Landen Financial Services, Inc. v Cricket's Termite Control, Inc.</i> While the writer is aware of similar results reached in other unreported Florida actions, this decision, the first reported decision in Florida, not only will provide assistance in dealing with similar scenarios but also exhibits the strength of standard lease clauses.
In the Spotlight
March 27, 2007
The broker provision of a lease should acknowledge the broker or brokers entitled to compensation and provide representations that the parties have not worked with any other broker in connection with the lease. Typically, the parties also agree to indemnify each other for violating these representations.
Midsize Law Firms Shift Recruiting Strategies
March 27, 2007
Big law firms are snatching up qualified graduates as quickly as law schools can churn them out. And with those schools graduating about the same number of students each year, some observers say the tightest squeeze is on midsized firms, those with 150 to 350 attorneys that also want a steady, though smaller, supply of associates each year.
Web Networks Reprogram Law Firm Marketing
March 27, 2007
Experts see social networks as the next wave of business opportunities to come from the Web ' opportunities that are being exploited by small startups and companies as large as The Coca-Cola Co.